the_cradle_of_uroborosfandomcom-20200215-history
Working Document
Here's the working document that we were working on. Hopefully this should help in keeping us on the same page (hah! punnnn!). We can delete this page when we're finished with it. 'Foxtale (talk) 11:51, March 11, 2013 (UTC) ' (A) ''The Cradle of Humanity '' Started in the forests, evolved based on water-dwelling theory. Flood-lands, wetlands, marsh. Crocodiles, alligators. African nomads. Aboriginal tribal culture, with Pellopenesian mobility. Crocodile god of storms, the elemental god. Spread north along the Ocean current to a coastal culture(1). (a) Jungle-dwelling tribes. Want for nothing, do not improve much. Live with nature. Obsidian weapons. Elemental god of storms (cyclones and monsoons). (b) Plains-dwelling tribal culture. Native American/Mongolian, hierarchy system. Chieftans and nomadic. Shamanism appears as they steal the thunder from the gods and flee the wrath.(1) a. Slow expansion across endless plains, a couple of traditional holy places where tribes gather. (2)-(3) b. Expansion into the desert, leading to a desert-skirmishing culture (4)-(5). c. United at (5) under a single warlord, sweeping through the desert, expanding into the entire continent and coming into conflict with the plains-dwellers of the eastern part of the continent. © Unsuccessful civilisation. On a land filled with wolves, massive lumbering beasts. Weren’t prepared. Spread across the mountains and plains (2). Domesticate giant birds, herders, tribal. (d) The first herders. Plainsmen of Africa style. Protective gods of domestication and shamanism. The Lonely Mountain plays a crucial part in development, as those who near the end of their lives journey to the mountain and die. Pantheon of gods living on the mountaintop, headed by Lightning God. Going back to the original region, you have a developing steppes, terraced farming culture with rice and fruit as the main foodsources. Bright and colourful garbed clothing. Primitive farming at (3) but rise at (4) to a culture of sky farmers. Skyfarming culture at (4) is bright, colourful, masons (j). See below for skyfarmers and their later skiff-users (i). (B) ''The Birth of Civilisation '' Humans expand into fertile river territories (3). Two main locations: (e) Irregular water-flow. Agricultural. Lots of strife, leading to an increase in military technology. Chariot technology, warlike. Very good at bird-back fighting, chariot-fighting, archery and offensive magic. The first recognisably human ascensions. God-kings which set themselves up as the New Gods. These New Gods would take positions on the Lonely Mountain, and be adopted as aspects of the Old Gods by tribes around (d1). a. d1 adopts a bird-back warfare in response, but they adopt the New Gods. b. The original (e) are freed from the influence of (f) at the Fall of Atlantis. One of the original mages who had escaped from the Fall ascends to godhood, and discovers that the key to keeping control is to give everyone the illusion of rebirth. Aligns himself with the trickster and uses political savviness to constantly overthrow his own government and plant himself as in power based on the needs of the civilisation. c. From an outsider perspective they become quite a tricky, deceitful culture. (f) Long-lived civilisation. First study of magic as an academic pursuit. Agricultural civilisation. Monument building on a massive scale. Stereotypical Egypt civilisation. Three phases of civilisation: a. Genuine scientific inquiry, working out how cosmology works, how the Gods are created. (3) b. Scientific academies perform an experiment whereby they raise up the wisest of academics to become a god of wisdom. (3) c. Direction of the culture goes from magical-scientific to rational-scientific. Trickster takes advantage of that to out-logic the god of wisdom and make him rationalise himself out of existence. d. Fall of Atlantis: magic disappears completely from the civilisation. Monuments collapse, magocracy falls apart, magic no longer works in a zone around them, and mages going into this place lose all powers completely. (4) e. Civilisations from (f) send back magic-users, who either do not come back or come back without magic. f. Age of recovery. They work out that magic is science. They know exactly how magic works, based on old library texts. “All magic users are welcome to come to our Grand Library, lose their magic completely, and learn everything about magic.” (5) g. Something interesting happens. (Start of 6) Do not tolerate lies, deceit, trickery, gods or magic. f1: Expansion by Egyptians into the dense jungle of a.’s land. Subjugation of natives with new magics, caste system introduced. Egyptians appear godlike to natives: inbreeding ruling class leading to incestuous family: long-neck, tiny chin, bulbous heads. Only magic users in the civilisation. Graded caste system based on bloodline links to the ruling caste. (g) Area of large-horned goats, sabretooth cats, tiny furred mammals, snowmoles (living in icy burrows), and giant eagles. a. Civilisation that appears (3) develops stealthy hunting techniques with technology in developing composite bows. A good bow is a family heirloom. Very good ranged fighters. Daggers made from eagle claws, cat teeth. Strong accent differences between cultures, tribes based on animal totems. b. They explode outwards to ring the world (4). Cultivate goat herds. Eagle tribe uses their eagles, able to unite the tribes together. And by (5) there is a dominant culture uniting across language barriers. (h) The melting pot island. Volcanic island with actual active lavaflows and lavatubes, that belt forth once a generation. a. Natives from the very first spread appear at (1), bringing their crocodile god who becomes a lizard god who lives in the heart of the volcano and occasionally spits forth in a roar and fire comes from the mountain. b. The native population becomes a primitive Pompeii, successively wiped out over and over again. (2) c. The Egyptian guys arrive and scoff at the primitive myths about the raging lizard god, but are wiped out by the volcano. (3) A second settling investigates the ruins (archaeologists) of the past destroyed civilisations and heeds the words of Pliny the Elder, investigating the mountain. Learns how to sense when it will happen again. d. The original tribes are subjugated under the Egyptian rule, and absorbed into their culture eventually. (4) They are still sort of under the sway of the Egyptians, until the Fall of Atlantis, after which they don’t hear from them for a long time, and explorers to the original realm don’t come back. Kingdom starts to fracture into distinct regions: i. Southern region (tied to original culture). ii. Western region (more to the native culture). iii. North-Eastern region (more fiercely independent). e. Awareness that there is a northern region, and tribe. But very little beyond the exotic products they can bring is known. The occasional domesticated eagle is brought down and is a sign of royalty. f. At (5) you have the beginning of pirate raids on the area. That’s just minor skirmishes. g. The uprising of a great lord of power (5) using reality-fracturing, showy magic to start a reign of terror. Classic hero tale of a farmer who unites the disparate kingdoms into one after defeating the archmage in a huge victory: calling on his bloodline to summon a dragon from the mountain to drag his foe into the depths of the planet. Consolidates the entire island under his rule. h. Kingdom is split between the area after a few generations. There is the emergence of the eagle-riders from the north forming four great powers which are rivals but linked by political need: i. Mountain and foothills (Dragonhearted bloodline) held by the lieutenant regent holding it for the once and future king. ii. Crescent Kingdom of the East (trading kingdom, ships and merchant navy) iii. Twin Kingdoms to the North-West from the twin sons of the king, who take equally forested-plained areas. Kingdom split down the middle, throne on either side of the border. Rule it sort of like one kingdom. 1. One of the bloodlines is xenophobic, the other is open and friendly. i. Sweeping declaration from regent that the northern tribes are welcome in the realms, and the two realms are ‘merged’ in an uneasy truce. (i) Skiff and stilt-walkers, who were originally from (j) at (4) where the skyfarmers expanded down into the marshland, building their bridgeworks as they went. Spanning bridges high above the marshland. a. At (5) the withdrawal of the skyfarmers leads to a certain amount of decay around the bridgework. Cranes used to take things from spanning bridge areas down below. b. Crocodile god is the old god, but has become one of decay: gnawing at the bridges to slowly take them apart. He is old, insane, like Theodren before Gandalf turns up. Worshipped more to appease than anything else. c. Shanty-town below the bridges, quite friendly with a party-town atmosphere. Old culture and festival influences. Lots of spices in the food (probably to make it edible since it’s swampland muck). d. Using stilts and skiffs to move between broken bridge remnants on which they build their houses. (j) Skyfarmers who emerge with an area living on the tops of mountains, with forested areas below. Using light timbers and paper for buildings. (4) a. Brightly coloured culture using the dyes from their fruits and herbs to advance in art and medicine. b. Fireworks used as a communication device originally but were also used for artistic displays. (5) (k) Raft-dwellers with their floating farms who rise around (5) as a new civilisation on the rise. Highly religious, based on the idea that the crocodile god has eaten himself and become a new, younger god. Is actually one of the shamans who has taken on the form of the old crocodile god in his Ascendancy. a. Area has sailfin crocodiles, which has inspired the use of sails in ships. Use of magic enhances the abilities here to allow long-distance trade networks set up. But trade is limited from this region to (h) and cannot make it to (f) due to magical constraints. (l) Island city-states, arriving at (3) on their tribal headdress ships. a. Around (4) you see them developing with their own unique cultures, epic hero sagas, taxation in ports and strong navies and privateer forces. Merchant trading guild with exhorbitant fees and guild-badges that make you immune from privateer forces. b. The culture in (b) is not so concerned with the ocean-faring culture, and holds them quite contemptuously. c. Area is host to a number of sea serpents. (m) Around (3) the ships would also have crossed the seas and arrived in the crater region. Harsh frozen wastelands following the footsteps of the original settlers at (1). Very nomadic, with vague villages and sparse farmland. a. Wildlife includes the giant land sloths which spend all of their time eating swathes through the landscape and walking super slowly and with villages build on top; dire wolves which to some degree are domesticated by the natives; herds of giant elk around the mountains; mammoths around the farmland (which are hunted to extinction by (m); and a number of tiny mammals and birds. Big on fishing, but there is the occasional serpent that eats fishermen. b. Followed the fertile land crescent across to a huge crater depression which occasionally drains to reveal vast plains of silvery metals. This is a metal which came down from the meteor strike, and has two distinct advantages: it is incredibly strong (and needs coal to fuel it) and it is immune to magical effects. i. The minerals from this metal have leeched out into the area and the animals in this region are pretty resistant to its effects. ii. Magic in the culture is not reliant on flashbang or harmful or building wizardry, but on illusion, prophesy and things that affect the person directly (shapeshifting into wolves on the full moon), and necromancy c. Using the metal to build a giant dyke in the ocean during one of its flooding events, and collect it to build a tower to the moon.